Saddam's killing room

The Sunday Times - Australia ^ | 4-6-03

[Oldeconomybuyer]

THE depraved brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime was revealed to the world yesterday in a series of horrific discoveries.

As US forces pressed further into Baghdad, their British allies uncovered an enormous charnel house containing the remains of hundreds of Saddam's torture victims.

Resembling an immense makeshift morgue, the warehouse near Basra contained row upon row of coffins - each with a skeleton - plus piles of reports and photographs documenting how each agonised soul had been executed.

Iran last night claimed many of the remains belonged to Iranian soldiers massacred by Saddam's henchmen in the 1980-1988 war and demanded their return.

Meanwhile sobbing civilians told how pro-Saddam thugs had burned children alive in the current conflict to "punish" parents for not fighting the allies.

And at a secret police base British soldiers unearthed files detailing the punishments meted out over the years to locals deemed disloyal.

For even the mildest complaint - such as complaining about a child's teacher or the lack of buses or fresh fruit and vegetables - locals could have an ear lopped off or be branded with hot irons.

This evidence, said coalition commanders, shows the reality of how harsh life was in Saddam's Iraq.

As well, witnesses told yesterday of how members of Saddam's Ba'ath Party had tortured and killed dozens of innocent children, leaving their tiny bodies hung from street lighting in the besieged southern city of Basra.

Children as young as four have been taken from their parents during the night and murdered after extremists targeted families thought to have been aiding coalition forces.

Some were hanged as their helpless parents were forced to watch.

An interpreter formerly attached to the UN learnt of the murders as she helped distribute aid. Vanessa Lough, 37, originally from France said: "Three women, one of whom's niece was killed told me what happened.

"In one street alone they said three children could at one point be seen hanging from the lamp posts and around the corner one child lay burnt on the road. Those parents and children who resisted were badly beaten."

Ms Lough said at first the three women, all middle aged, were reluctant to talk about what they had seen for fear of persecution.

"They were genuinely afraid for their lives," she said. "Through what I can gather they knew of a least 11 deaths but said they were many more elsewhere in the city.

"One of the ladies said Ba'ath party leaders and several henchmen had ordered and carried out the killings after their headquarters were bombed last week.

"It was their way of getting back, they said.

"One of the men told a father his son was being killed because he (the father) had been seen laughing with several men from the British army that day. They told him he had 'betrayed' Saddam in an act of treason. He received a broken leg and a severe beating. The men made the father watch as they set his son alight with petrol. The boy's screams pierced the relative calm that had fallen on the city in the last few days."

Since the outbreak of war 18 days ago leaders of the Ba'ath party are alleged to have targeted several hundred families who were known to be openly against Saddam.

They also have fired on thousands of civilians trying to flee Basra - and shot at innocent civilians collecting vital water from British troops in nearby Zubayr.

One of those targeted, Samir Adjwah, 27, last night expressed his relief at surviving. Speaking from his hospital bed he said he had just collected water when a car pulled up alongside him and fired two shots, hitting him in the stomach. "I collapsed to the ground and as I did they shouted 'Never betray Saddam. Keep away from those soldiers'," he said.

[Rocko]

Bump.

[VOA]

THE depraved brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime was revealed to the world yesterday
in a series of horrific discoveries.

"But, like dude, George W. Bush killed thousands in Texas with capital punishment."

just preparing for the inevitable response by "peace activists"

[ShootMeIfHillaryRuns]

And yet Bush is called Hitler... go figure...

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Hey Hollywood.. have a cup of shut the f*** up and read this.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

BUMP

"In one street alone they said three children could at one point be seen hanging from the lamp posts and around the corner one child lay burnt on the road. Those parents and children who resisted were badly beaten."

[Wilhelm Tell]

I'm sure some "peace" activists will say all this is made up by the Americans or maybe the Americans or British impersonated Baathist thugs and committed these crimes. There is a segment of the left that believes that the West is absolutely evil and anyone who opposes the West is thus automatically good. Their anti-Westernism causes them to whitewash Saddam (or Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot), just like some anti-Semites are driven to deny the Nazi's crimes. There is an amazing mental or moral defect in some people that causes them to embrace totalitarinism--ANY form of totalitarianism. I suspect that these pathetic people get a feeling of power from identifying with tyrants.

[oyez]

Hollywood isn't going to listen to this. and aparently most of the media are having none of it. Is anyone other than Foxnews carry thise stories? I haven't seen it and my local paper barely touched it.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

I haven't seen it and my local paper barely touched it.

I just e-mailed this article to the publisher and editor of my local paper.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

It was in the KC Star this morning.

[FITZ]

Hollywood and the Muslim world plus France and Germany, Mexico and Canada, and the UN already had every reason to know of these kinds of human rights abuses ----but they didn't care and still don't care. There won't be any apologies, ---just watch, they'll find ways to condemn the US for ending this.

[oyez]

These people seem to have confusion with authority and they do not recognise absolutes so they have a latent vacuum with in their moral make up. A Stalin would probably fit right in to that vaccuum.

[randita]

We've seen the pictures of the makeshift morgue filled with torture and execution victims, so that's factual.

Not that the other accounts of children hanging from lampposts are possible and probable, I'll reserve judgement about that until more proof beyond hearsay is given. Remember all the stories of atrocities that were circulated during the Serb-Kosovo conflict that later proved unfounded--as well as those during Desert Storm.

[ex-Texan]

*Bump* !!!

[Anamensis]

I'm sure some "peace" activists will say all this is made up by the Americans or maybe the Americans or British impersonated Baathist thugs and committed these crimes.

Our own lefties might not go quite that far, but they'll definitely insist that these murders are in response to our invasion and that if we hadn't invaded they wouldn't have "felt compelled" to do this. I call it the "Chomsky-on-Cambodia" response.

[oyez]

I feel the media is trying not to anger some of the minority populations or else suck up to the Iraqis.

[oyez]

What about the one they tortured and killed before we landed?

[Anamensis]

Easy. Those were because of the sanctions. You know, the "cruel UN sanctions" (that for a while became mere "containment, that's working!" in the last few months before the war.) You see, in leftie-world, the cruel sanctions make the area unstable and provoke the killings. Again, all our fault. Blame America First. You have to really get that first rule, that everything that happens in the world is somehow our fault. Once you absorb that, you can predict their responses.

[Anamensis]

Remember all the stories of atrocities that were circulated during the Serb-Kosovo conflict that later proved unfounded--as well as those during Desert Storm.

Some of those are turning out to be "founded" after all, according to the recently declassified DOD documents from November 1992.

[=Intervention=]

Got a link to that? I'd enjoy reading them myself....